Harvey, William, 1578-1657; Physicians -- England -- Biography
"May 1659. The second day was proved the will and Codicil annext of Dr.
William Harvey, late of the parish of St. Peter's Poore, in London,
but at Roehampton in the County of Surrey, deceased, by the oath of
Eliab Harvey, the brother and sole executor, to whom administration was
committed, he being first sworn truly to administer." This entry seems
to set at rest the doubt that had been expressed as to the exact place
of Harvey's death, for Aubrey with his customary inaccuracy in detail
stated that he died in London.
William Harvey may perhaps be compared more fitly with John Hunter
than with any single scientific man who either preceded or followed
him. Harvey laid the foundation of modern medicine by his discovery
of the circulation of the blood. Hunter laid the foundation of modern
pathology, not by any single and striking discovery, but by a long
course of careful observation. Harvey, like Hunter, was a careful and
competent observer; both were skilled anatomists, both were ardent
pathologists, both were comparative anatomists of a high order. By
singular ill fortune we have lost the records of many years of careful
work done by each of these great men. Harvey's work was destroyed or
scattered by the violence of the times in which he lived, and we can
only be grateful that so much is spared to us; Hunter's work was lost
irrevocably by the crime of his trusted assistant and brother-in-law.
Harvey, like Hunter, was choleric, but his nature was the more lovable,
though each had the power, innate in every great teacher, of attaching
to himself and enrolling in his work all sorts of unlikely people. The
collecting or acquisitive spirit was equally developed both in Hunter
and Harvey, but the desire for knowledge was less insatiable in Harvey.
The influence of breeding and education is nowhere more marked than in
these two great men, otherwise so nearly allied. Harvey's knowledge is
always well within the grasp of his intellect. He can formulate it,
often in exquisite language, and it is so familiar to him that he can
afford to use similes and images which show him to be a man of wide
general education. He thinks clearly so that his unerring conclusions
are drawn in a startlingly easy manner. Yet he was often hampered by
the theories of the ancient philosophical schools of medicine. Hunter's
knowledge was gigantic, but it was uncontrolled. His thoughts are
obscure and so ill expressed that it is often difficult to discover
what he would say. His conclusions too are sometimes incorrect and are
frequently laboured, yet the advance of knowledge in the hundred years
and more which separated him from Harvey afforded him many additional
data.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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